气候变化领域集成服务门户(CCPortal): Acute riverine microplastic contamination due to avoidable releases of untreated wastewater

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DOI	10.1038/s41893-021-00718-2
	Acute riverine microplastic contamination due to avoidable releases of untreated wastewater
	Woodward J.; Li J.; Rothwell J.; Hurley R.
发表日期	2021
ISSN	2398-9629
起始页码	793
结束页码	802
卷号	4 期号:9
英文摘要	Wastewater discharge to rivers is a controversial practice that compromises water quality, aquatic habitats and human health worldwide. Here we show how untreated wastewater laced with microplastics and raw sewage is routinely discharged into UK river flows that are too low to disperse the microplastics downstream. These ‘dry weather’ spills lead to acute microplastic contamination of river bed habitats. Many aquatic fauna feed in the benthic zone, the quality of which affects the entire riverine ecosystem. All microplastic types accumulate to high concentrations on the channel bed until flushed downstream by floods. These findings pose fundamental questions about the sustainable management of urban wastewater. Treating the wastewater would shut down the major source of microplastic fragments and microbeads in such rivers and prevent their transport to the ocean. Riverine microplastic transport is primarily partitioned between: (1) continuous transport at low concentrations of synthetic fibres from treated wastewater effluent; and (2) episodic flood-driven transport of the full microplastic assemblage entrained from contaminated channel beds. Focusing only on the buoyant non-flood microplastic load can produce highly unrepresentative assessments of riverine microplastic contamination. Climate warming and urban population growth will intensify the microplastic burden on many river ecosystems as summer baseflows decline and wastewater fluxes increase. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.
语种	英语
scopus关键词	Aquatic ecosystems; Contamination; Effluents; Floods; Hydrogeology; Microplastic; Population statistics; Rivers; Sewage; Urban growth; Wastewater treatment; Water quality; Low concentrations; Riverine ecosystems; Sustainable management; Treated wastewater; Untreated wastewater; Urban population; Urban wastewater; Wastewater discharge; River pollution
来源期刊	Nature Sustainability
文献类型	期刊论文
条目标识符	http://gcip.llas.ac.cn/handle/2XKMVOVA/249749
作者单位	Department of Geography, The University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom; Norwegian Institute for Water Research, Oslo, Norway
推荐引用方式 GB/T 7714	Woodward J.,Li J.,Rothwell J.,et al. Acute riverine microplastic contamination due to avoidable releases of untreated wastewater[J],2021,4(9).
APA	Woodward J.,Li J.,Rothwell J.,&Hurley R..(2021).Acute riverine microplastic contamination due to avoidable releases of untreated wastewater.Nature Sustainability,4(9).
MLA	Woodward J.,et al."Acute riverine microplastic contamination due to avoidable releases of untreated wastewater".Nature Sustainability 4.9(2021).